Grave Miasma debuts new track from Odori Sepulcrorum

UK ritualistic outfit Grave Miasma have debuted a new song ‘Ovation To A Thousand Lost Reveries’ from the upcoming album Odori Sepulcrorum which will be released via Profound Lore Records on September 13th. Many are eager to hear this album since Grave Miasma shares members with the now defunct Cruciamentum.

Originally called Goat Molestor, Grave Miasma create rapt and introspective music by the use of repetition and rather simplistic riffs, but they do so in a way where it becomes meditative. This new track is very reminiscent of previous works by Grave Miasma and appears to have a slicker production than their last two EPs.

13 thoughts on “Grave Miasma debuts new track from Odori Sepulcrorum”

With the talk of bands only existing as “fifth generation aesthetic brands” around here, this is just more of the same 1995 and beyond “not that bad” Incantation metal. It does what it does well, but in no meaningful way that will make you replace the albums you already owned for a couple decades that fit this bill. In this internet age, I doubt a Euronymous type will emerge to create a movement that’s apart from the same old, same old. Novelty acts like Krallice and Liturgy aren’t in season anymore, and with Amorphis having run out of things to throw at the wall and Opeth finally becoming the lukewarm 70s tribute they were always meant to be, it seems the game of aesthetic dress up has ran its course. Still, we’re left with this, which only reminds of the old releases. Not because of nostalgia, but the quality issue. Without something new to write about, we are left with reinterpretations of decades old hymns to Satan, death, and the Cthulhu mythos. It seems often times the wise metalheads around this site wonder, “why was everything after The Red in the Sky is Ours by At the Gates kind of shitty?”, for example (you could say the same about Amorphis, Carcass, Atrocity, etc.). Well, when you have an album that’s such an all encompassing view on death metal, conceptually (whether an aspect of it or a theme), you can only head downhill from there. The well of inspiration has run dry. Now we have Gorguts, who went from a dissociative view of music as we know it (Obscura), to the egotistical instrumental masturbation of their latest album and bands such as Ulcerate or Ara: third tier, watered down interpretations of that album meant to pander to the insatiable appetites of the selfish ones who want more and more, no matter how paltry the diminished returns may be. Even tribute acts like Neptune Towers didn’t sound like a Klaus Schulze ripoff, although the aesthetic was there, Under a Funeral Moon can’t be confused for a Bathory album, and Transilvanian Hunger isn’t simply “fast Burzum” as Darkthrone themselves would call it. Maybe metal has finished what it needed to do. Every early death metal band back then probably wanted to create something like Onward to Golgotha, but when Incantation achieved that, where did all those supposed evil bands turn to? Stadium metal (Hypocrisy), fat girls (Samael), and the stoned hipster Big Lebowski shirts crowd (Amorphis). At best, we’re left with a band like this: if we saw them live we would say “well, it’s not crap, but I’m going to listen to Onward to Golgotha when I drive back home”. Filling a void music: not offensive, just kind of there. At this point, the only thing I can look forward to is the advent of the last Demilich track being released on a compilation. Otherwise, more Father Befouled and Krypts that make one wish they were hearing Craig Pillard-era Incantation and The Karelian Isthmus, respectively. Hmmmm… what makes me bitter may be the fact that I am satisfied with what death metal accomplishing what it already sought out to do, but that people keep burying the past in a sea of mediocre (at best) bullshit that reinterprets it in no nifty way.

This is true, but Incantation has been pandering to the OSDM audience’s interpretation of what constitutes as good music since their last Relapse album. Compared to the early Craig Pillard releases, Grave Miasma feels like watching a sitcom episode. Time wasted, which is all I can expect from the OSDM focus group efforts (Disma, Funebrarum, etc.), even if they are staying true to the source material.

It’s better than most things coming out today in death metal. Which 2013 death metal releases are better? The song structure presents a simplified Cruciamentum (more straight-forward, less repetitive) influence which gives it more depth than the previous EPs. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s executed well enough to not throw it to the wayside because it’s not up to par with Onwards To Golgotha (source material*). I think that it’s a good effort in a scene drenched in idiocy with hipsters parading around as metal sporting Darkthrone shirts.

I don’t agree with this at all, and I suspect that you wouldn’t feel this way if you had it heard side-by-side with Incantation a couple of decades back. In other words, I think the problem is that you are bored and frustrated with death metal because you’ve over-immersed yourself in it. If Onward to Golgotha came out tomorrow, are you sure that your perception and thinking would be clear enough to recognize it for what it is?

I realize that this might sound sort of patronizing, but I’m speaking from my own experience (so forgive me if I’m wrong!). I used to feel the same way that you do about metal in general, but at some point along the way I realized that I wasn’t really LISTENING anymore. I was just reacting to a superficial perception of ‘sameness’ and ‘old-hat-ness’. After revisiting a few post-2000 efforts I had previously dismissed as empty ‘worship’, it became clear to me that my own inattention and bitterness was the problem. The key is active listening – forget about time and genre-context until the album is over. You can re-apply these filters once you’ve actually digested the music.

The point is that within a given genre there is as much room for the drive towards perfection and refinement as there is for expansion and linear development. Death metal isn’t really that old. It’s not a dead genre. There is still territory left to explore and develop. Parts of it are certainly stale, but the real failures and dead ends have been all the attempts to forcibly “evolve” it. It seems to me that bands like Grave Miasma are actually helping us return to a much more even, organic developmental direction.

This is an improvement over that “Exalted Emanation” EP, mostly because it isn’t over-emphasizing the ritualistic aspect as much and has got a more focused sense of song direction. Also slight correction: Cruciamentum had an update on their facebook page I think a month or two ago where they said they were going to stay active and release a full length, thankfully.

When did they break up? I’m looking at their Facebook page and nowhere in any of their recent status updates have they stated they’re no more. Mind you, there hasn’t been any updates since early June, but that isn’t necessarily indicative of a split.